Home prices: How low will they go?

The other day an exasperated colleague who'd love to sell a house that she's been renting out asked me when prices are going to stop falling. A new quarterly report from Fiserv/Case-Shiller says that in the Twin Cities metro area fell 1.2 percent over the past year and will fall another 5.4 percent during 2011 before stabilizing by the end of the 1st quarter 2011. In fact, the Twin Cities metro area is among only three markets that is expected to stabilize by the end of 2011.

The report says that by the end of the third quarter 2010 prices nationwide fell 1.5 percent and are expected to fall another 5.5 percent. Prices have fallen steadily for five years.

What's good about the data: It's based on sales data from the Federal Housing Finance Agency. What's not: It tracks only sale prices for single-family houses.